So now comes an animated feature called “Star Wars: Clone Wars” that takes place between episodes 2 and 3, directed by someone else and once again raising our hopes that perhaps a good Star Wars movie could exist again… or making us brace ourselves for the raping of our fond memories yet again. So did Star Wars: Clone Wars continue to defile our childhood memories and the original trilogy as Jar Jar did? You know what… it actually didn’t.

Even most die hard Star Wars Apologists (of which I am one) admit to one degree or another that the latest set of Star Wars movies (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith) were a mild disappointment at best and a complete raping of our childhoods at worst. The name Jar Jar Binks will go down in cinematic history as perhaps the most hated and despised character ever to hit the silver screen and George Lucas saw his almost religious like following of worshipers who saw him as a cinematic deity lose their faith almost overnight like Dorothy pulling back the curtain to reveal the true identity of the Wizard of Oz.

So now comes an animated feature called “Star Wars: Clone Wars” that takes place between episodes 2 and 3, directed by someone else and once again raising our hopes that perhaps a good Star Wars movie could exist again… or making us brace ourselves for the raping of our fond memories yet again. So did Star Wars: Clone Wars continue to defile our childhood memories and the original trilogy as Jar Jar did? You know what… it actually didn’t.

THE GENERAL IDEA

The war between the separatists and the Republic continues to intensify and grows increasingly close. Any advantage could become pivotal to either side. Many systems still remain neutral in the conflict as each side tries to win over more supporters. In the midst of this situation, hyperspace trade routes in the Outer Rim Territories (under the control of the Hutts) is becoming even more important. When Jabba The Hutt’s son is kidnapped (yes you read that right… Jabba’s son), the Jedi Council sees an opportunity and offers to send Jedi to rescue the Hutt if Jabba would be willing to allow the Republic to use the hyperspace routes in the Outer Rim. Anakin Skywalker is assigned his own Padawan Learner, a young girl named Ahsoka Tano and the two set out to rescue the Hutt. Little do they know, it’s all a part of Palpatine and Doku’s plan.

THE GOOD

The action of the film was far more intense than I was expecting. There were so many giant set pieces and grand action sequences that the film hardly ever stopped to catch its breath. And it’s not just that there was a LOT of action… it was all really good action. From the giant space battles to the huge ground troop battles, the lightsaber duels and the Jedi throwing themselves into swarms of battle droid fights… it was all really quite spectacular. To me, it was easily the most action packed Star Wars movie to date, and maybe the most action packed Sci Fi film I’ve ever seen (animated or otherwise). It was fantastic. My hats off to them.

As much as I worried about how the animation looked in the trailers, I’ve got to admit within about 3 minutes I was totally sold on it and thought it worked and looked quite beautiful. Yeah, the facial animation could have been a lot better, but aside from that I thought the landscapes, the structures, the ships, the movements and the environments in general were all done wonderfully in my opinion, but I can see why others may differ.

THE BAD

I don’t really know where to start. First of all they butchered the theme music. HOW THE HELL DO YOU BUTCHER THE CLASSIC AND IMMORTAL STAR WARS MUSIC?!?!?! After the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away” appear, you expect to hear that immortal music… but instead it was some pseudo variation of it… this was the movie serving notice that this was NOT a true star wars movie.

Instead of the iconic opening crawl setting the stage, some 1960’s game show announcer does some ass awful narration to start the film. I wanted to claw out my own ears he sounded so bad. Damn… and we’re only 30 seconds into the movie!

The dialog was beyond horrendous. I’m not even going to go into it.

The new Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, was so freaking annoying… so “modern youth”… so bitch like I wanted to climb into the screen, kick her in her little kid ribs and shove a lightsaber down her annoying little throat. She was NOT what a padawan or Jedi is supposed to be… not even close. She was so mouthy she made Anakin look like the Dali Lama of Padawans. It made me angry whenever she spoke. Her action sequences were sweet… but they should have kept a gag on her.

I’m sorry… but the main plot is Jedis rescuing Jabba The Hutt’s kidnapped son?!?!?! LAME!!

OVERALL

Ok, here’s the thing. Once I accepted that this film was unapologetically a little kids movie and I moved beyond my rage about that annoying fact, I actually found myself being able to have some fun with it. Yes, there are many rotten things wrong with this “movie”, but as I mentioned there was a hell of a lot of really high quality action and “fun” that had me being entertained despite the weaknesses. I refuse to call this a true “Star Wars” movie, and I’ll never accept it as cannon, but for what it was, by the time the credits roled I didn’t mind it too much.

Overall I give Star Wars: Clone Wars a 6 out of 10.

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